


Christmas at Torchwood

by Pridia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Eve, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, I'm Bad At Tagging, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s04e14 The Next Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-05 17:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14048931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pridia/pseuds/Pridia
Summary: After The Doctor left Jackson Lake the TARDIS decides that it's time for the Time Lord to visit Martha again, the TARDIS takes him to her on the day before Christmas and she takes him to celebrate it at Torchwood





	1. An Unexpected Visit

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooo... I'm a very productive writer who's only 4 months late for Christmas... errrrrrrr well, my friends assured me that it's never too late or too early to post a Christmas fic so I guess I'm good. Anyway, once again I planned to write a short one-shot and once again it turned into something longer than that. As this fic turned as long as it did I decided to split it into 3 chapters, as I'm writing this I've only edited chapter 1 and once I'll edit the other chapters I'll put them up, so expect the next one in a couple of days and then another couple of days for the next chapter I think. There will be a max of a week between them, I'll promise that. I also promise that my English is better in the actual chapter, I don't know why but I always end up typing in gibberish outside the stories I write *shrugs*  
> Anyway, enjoy!

The Doctor pulled the dematerialisation lever, deciding to put the TARDIS in the vortex. Spending the day with one Jackson Lake had been fun, but it had reminded him of everything he had lost.

_And it hurt._

He ran his hand over his face as he went further into the inside of the TARDIS, needing to relax and forget again.

A couple of minutes later he was making his way towards the library with a steaming cup of tea, a good book would help him to forget about the terrible things that had happened in his life. For a couple of hours at least.

His plans got crushed when the TARDIS suddenly decided to lunge, making him lose his balance which caused him to spill his tea over himself and hit his head against the wall, then the TARDIS lunged the other side making him land on all fours with a grunt, he tried to keep himself balanced as the TARDIS was shaking. He didn't know what was going on and was worried about it, at least until the TARDIS quickly assured him that everything was okay and that he just had to hang on.

"What are you doing!?" He nearly screamed at the TARDIS.

He didn't get an answer, so he just focused on keeping his balance. However he failed when the TARDIS lunged once again, he let out a grunt as he landed on his back. Just after he had landed on the corridor floor the TARDIS landed with her usual thud.

The Time Lord kept laying there trying to catch his breath and sooth his racing hearts.

 _Where are we?_ He wondered mentally.

 _You will find out in due time my thief._ The TARDIS answered him in his head.

"Yeah, great, thanks." He said and closed his eyes, trying to get rid of the slight dizziness in his head he got from hitting the wall.

He could tell that there wasn't too much damage from the hit, the dizziness would be gone quickly.

"Doctor!"

A female voice startled him out of his concentration a couple of minutes later, causing him to open his eyes and look up towards the source.

"Martha?" He wondered as she sped to his side, checking him for injuries.

"What happened?" She asked worriedly.

"Nothing. " He answered as he sat up. "I'm fine."

"Nothing?" She repeated disbelievingly. "Then what are you doing on the floor?" She asked incredulously.

He looked around at the ground then looked her in the eyes.

"Relaxing?" He tried unsure, rubbing his neck.

The look Martha gave him told him that she didn't believe him.

"What? The floor is surprisingly comfy." He added finding his confidence again.

"Sure, with grating digging in your back I can sure imagine," Martha said in a mocking tone, causing the Time Lord to wince and sigh in resignation.

"Honestly though, I just fell... and dropped my favourite cup." He added while looking sadly at the remains of said cup. "Oh.. and might've slightly hit my head. I'm still fine though." He assured her

"Oh... you hit your head?" Martha asked him. "you could have a concussion." She started searching for signs of said concussion.

The Time Lord rolled his eyes at that.

"I don't have a concussion, I already checked." He told her.

"I'll check anyway," Martha told him firmly, in the kind of tone he knew not to disobey.

She pulled him up from the floor and let him to the infirmary.

* * *

After a couple of tests, Martha concluded that he, indeed, didn't have a concussion.

"Told you." The Doctor said in a sing-song tone.

Martha crossed her arms unimpressed at that.

"Yeah... do you want me to list all the times you said you weren't injured, only for it to turn out you were?" She countered.

"Errrr..." The Time Lord rubbed his neck awkwardly. "That won't be necessary."

"That's what I thought." She continued satisfied. "Now, since this is figured out, I'd like to know what you're doing here?" She wondered.

The Doctor frowned.

"Could you specify 'here'?" He asked.

Martha frowned at him.

"You do know that the TARDIS landed in my flat, right?" She wondered, earning a blank stare from the Time Lord.

"I do now." He eventually answered cheekily, earning him a swat on the arm.

"How didn't you know that earlier?" She questioned.

"The TARDIS decided to do that, she didn't discuss it with me. Not at all, I mean. She surprised me with landing all of a sudden, which caused me to fall over and well... you know the rest." He answered.

"Oh, okay then. Well, just as well that you're here. It's Christmas." She told him. "And you're going to be staying!" She added firmly.

"Errr... What are the plans for Christmas?" He wondered nervously, not entirely in the mood for dealing with Martha's family, no matter how nice they were, at least now.

"Just dinner and presents over at Torchwood Cardiff, we'll be joined by a couple other of your old companions." Then she changed to an exited whisper to convince him. "We also got you presents," She knew his love for presents

He smiled slightly, slightly getting into the mood, then his expression turned into a frown.

"Why would you get me presents if you don't know whether I'm coming?" He wondered.

"Because you're you," Martha answered him. "Now, go on change into some clean clothes and we'll get in the car. Be nice and dig your Christmas sweater out of the wardrobe, would you?"

The Time Lord shifted uncomfortably.

"Two things. One: Why would we go by car if I could move the TARDIS to Cardiff and B... No, hang on, Two: There's no way I'm wearing a Christmas sweater out in public, what if I for some reason end up at UNIT and then I'll be in their records with a Christmas sweater for the rest of my lives. I've got a reputation to  _uphold!_ " He complained.

"Okay, One: Your driving is terrible, for all we know we could end up in the stomach of a T-Rex or something." She opened her mouth to continue but got interrupted.

"That has never happened before!" The Time Lord exclaimed undignified.

"Knowing your driving, it probably will sooner or later. As for your second remark I have two things to say. Firstly, you're already noted in the records of UNIT with several terrible clothing styles, I mean, a celery? And secondly, everyone knows that Christmas sweaters aren't fashionable, they just go with the season. No one looks good in them, except for some lucky few. Now go get  _changed!_  We leave in 10 minutes." She finished firmly.

"Yes ma'am." He said and shot up from the bed, he had been forced to sit on it earlier, to go and find that horrifying Christmas sweater Martha had bought for him in 1969, he was sure she meant that one at least. He was so glad that he had resisted the urge to just throw the sweater in the same black hole as the TARDIS' manual had ended up, because Martha would have his head him if he didn't wear that sweater in 10 minutes.

When he walked into his bedroom he noticed that the TARDIS had been considerate towards him and had put the red Christmas sweater on his bed already, along with a pair of jeans.

The Time Lord wrinkled his nose.

"An ugly Christmas sweater is one thing, but there's no way I'm wearing  _jeans._ " He said mostly to himself.

The TARDIS mentally reminded him that he had worn jeans in his current body before.

"Yes, I wore jeans back when we were stuck in the ninety sixties because I didn't have a  _choice!_ I do have one now and I'm not wearing  _jeans!_ " He said as he went to look for the trousers of his blue suit instead. He could wear those trousers perfectly fine with that red sweater, he could even wear his coat over it all. if Martha let him at least.

The Time Lord nodded decisively to himself as he quickly changed out of his tea stained clothes into the more Christmas themed set.

He walked out of the TARDIS roughly two minutes later to discover that the TARDIS indeed seemed to have landed in a living room. Martha's living room, to be more exact. Not that he would've known that if Martha hadn't mentioned it earlier.

He had never been in Martha's new flat, The Master had blown up her old one so it didn't surprise him that she had a new one, who would want to live in a blown up flat?

It looked nice enough, there were several pictures of her family and he even managed to spot an old-ish one of himself with Martha and every one of the flat complex where they had lived in 1969. He remembered the reason behind the picture. It had been for Mr Rowland who had been moving out of the flat into an elderly home, and he had wanted a picture of all his neighbours to remember them. They liked Mr Rowland so of course, they hadn't said no.

He turned his head away from the picture as he heard Martha's voice coming from what he suspected to be the kitchen. He decided to head towards the direction her voice came from and see what was going on.

When he walked into the room, which was indeed the kitchen, he saw that Martha was on the phone.

"Yes, we're about to leave. I'll speak to you later." Martha said to the person on the phone.

"Alright, I speak to you in a couple of hours, Nightingale." The Doctor managed to pick up Jack's voice with his advanced hearing, then he heard the phone call being ended from the other side. Martha closed her own phone and turned to the Time Lord, giving him a once over and apparently approved of his outfit.

"Ready to go?" She asked him.

He nodded in response.

"Well then, come on then!" She said as she pulled him out of the flat and into the car.


	2. In the Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I had a lot of trouble with the editing of this chapter, some parts I've had to change like 5 times and would still feel like it's a not working sentence or something like that. Honestly, I actually stopped editing it one of the past days because I was fed up with it, even after asking my friends for help with some of the sentences... (I did come back to finish it later.) so please go easy on me for this chapter as I'm sure there are some terrible mistakes here *looks hopefully*

On their way towards Torchwood, The Doctor and Martha caught up with each other a bit.

The Time Lord told Martha about the events around Agatha Christie, the revolution on the planet of Maldem, which he had witnessed with Donna. He had also told her about what had happened with Jackson Lake and he had also told her a part of the events of the Library. He kept silent about River Song, lying about how they ended up downloading the people back to the real world. He really didn't want to talk about the mysterious woman from his future with Martha. He didn't mention anything about the events of Midnight either, not wanting to relive those events.

Martha told him about her job at UNIT, the time she spent at Torchwood helping the team out and about her break-up with Tom Milligan.

"We never saw each other and we just came to the conclusion that it wouldn't work that way." She explained.

The Doctor nodded in understanding.

Martha was telling the story of the pink fluffy alien the Torchwood team had been chasing for hours and, thankfully, eventually caught. As she was telling about how it had escaped once again in the Torchwood headquarters she registered that her alien friend had been very quiet in the last five minutes.

A quick glance to her right told her just why she hadn't heard anything fromthe Time Lord in a while.

_He was fast asleep._

Martha smiled slightly to herself, but she was also slightly worried. The Time Lord rarely slept. That wasn't why she was worried about him falling asleep in the car though. No, the problem was that he absolutely despised sleeping anywhere but in the TARDIS. This was something she had learned while sharing a flat with him in the 1960's, after a couple of weeks he had been unable to hide his exhaustion from her any longer and had admitted that he was afraid someone or something would hurt him in his sleep, he only felt safe enough in the TARDIS, as she was the safest ship in the universe.

After his confession, Martha had tried very hard to comfort him and make him feel safe enough to get his needed rest. Eventually, as he was about to collapse from exhaustion, she had managed to convince him by promising she wouldn't leave the room as he was sleeping, specifically with her awake instead of him.

After her little victory, she had hoped that the Time Lord would be able to get enough sleep from then on, with her being free on Sundays to watch over him, as he obviously wanted or even needed someone to watch over him. However, The Doctor wouldn't have been The Doctor if he hadn't been his stubborn self and hadn't claimed that with the couple of hours of sleep he had gotten with Martha's help, which actually had been way too little considering how sleep deprived he was, he would be able to go on without sleep until they got the TARDIS back and therefore wouldn't need something like a weekly nap time.

When Martha argued that he would need to sleep before they had the TARDIS back, because it wasn't healthy, he had argued back that he was 900 years old and certainly not a toddler who needed instructions all day long.

Martha had silently agreed on the toddler part since toddlers weren't nearly as stubborn as the last of the Time Lords regarding nap time (and some other things that were purely for his comfort).

unsurprisingly, after two weeks The Doctor had been back to the same sleep-deprived condition as he had been in before, nevertheless, it still had taken her a while to convince him to climb into bed again under the same conditions as earlier.

* * *

Now, Martha wondered how he had ended to accidentally fall asleep outside the TARDIS. Especially considering she practically had to force him to close his eyes in the past. Though she would wish for it, she didn't believe that he simply had gotten over his fear. Besides, she had thought that he had looked a bit tired earlier, she had refrained from mentioning it and had just resolved to force him to have a nap later when they where in the hotel room before they would head to Torchwood. They had to share the room anyway as it was a nightmare to get a room for Christmas Eve  _on_  Christmas Eve, she had booked her room way in advance. Besides, they had shared beds often enough in the past, so she couldn't see why it was a problem now. However, she had to concede that him having a nap in the car suited her planning better. Though she would confront him later when he was awake to find out how this could've happened.

Her plans, however, got ruined when she heard whimpering next to her, she looked at the source of the sound and what she saw was slightly heard breaking, obviously the Time Lord was having a nightmare and she wasn't sure but she thought that he was shaking with fear, she couldn't make sure of it as she had to keep her eyes on the road, an accident really wasn't what they needed.

No, she needed to pull the Time Lord out of the land of nightmares. The problem was that he was rather difficult to wake up. He's had nightmares before, on the TARDIS and it had always taken her a lot of effort to get him to wake up, sometimes she just gave up and had curled next to him to comfort him in his sleep, that usually worked well enough.

Therefore, she knew that just shouting at him to wake up wouldn't be enough and since she was driving, it wasn't exactly safe to do something else. Luckily an off-road parking lot just came up and she gratefully took the opportunity to take the turn off and park there. As soon as she had turned off the engine she turned towards The Doctor and started to shake him heavily while attempting to wake him, she hated to be rough on him, but it was necessary to get him awake and any bruises he would get by her being a bit too rough wouldn't be nearly as bad as continuing being tormented by whatever he was encountering in his nightmare.

* * *

The Doctor finally woke up with another whimper, still partly trapped in his nightmare. He took a couple of deep breaths trying to calm his racing hearts. He was vaguely aware of two arms that pulled him into a warm embrace, he momentarily stiffened up as he registered that, momently scared that he would get harmed, until his only partly awake brain supplied that it was Martha who had pulled him into an embrace, causing him to relax again and let himself be comforted. He really needed the comfort.

After a couple of minutes, The Doctor had calmed down a bit and just allowed himself to lay in Martha's comfortable arms. He knew that he would have to move soon, Jack was expecting them to be at Torchwood around a certain time. If that hadn't been the case he would've been content to stay like this for a couple of hours.

He was however mortified that he had fallen asleep. He had been perfectly aware that he hadn't had nearly enough sleep before they had stepped into the car, he had however misjudged just how far he had been behind on his sleeping schedule, he had also forgotten just how much the safe feeling that Martha was radiating towards him affected him. He wasn't sure how that worked, he had just slowly started to feel safe around Martha, at least, at points when there wasn't any attacking by aliens going on. It is a bit hard to feel safe when you are being chased by big bad aliens who are trying to kill you.

He hadn't slept much since the whole ordeal in the shuttle at Midnight, he always ended up reliving the moments where he had been captured by the entity in his dreams. He had been absolutely terrified back then and he woke up just as terrified every time he had somehow nodded off, because by now every time he fell asleep was accidental as he was activity running away from sleep, not wanting to face his fears. Up until now, he had only had accidental naps on the TARDIS, but now he had managed to fall asleep in a  _car!_ At least it wasn't in a dangerous place and nothing had been endangered by his unplanned nap.

Except maybe his dignity.

Not that he had much dignity left around Martha, he had exposed too much of himself to her to have any left. Not that he really cared about that, he trusted her, which was the reason that he had exposed himself so much.

No, the real problem was that Martha would be questioning him about his nightmare and about the fact that he had been tired enough to fall asleep in a place that wasn't the TARDIS without encouraging. Sure, she would leave his nightmare alone if he would tell her that he didn't feel like talking about it, which he really didn't as he despised just thinking about the incident, the last thing he wanted to do was to talk about it.

However, he knew that it wasn't that simple, Martha would force him to talk when it would be bad for his health, she wouldn't care about his boundaries on the subject if it was a risk for his health. If he was honest with himself he didn't blame her. She had gone further than he liked for his well-being more than once. While he secretly was really glad that she did that, he still set similar boundaries, not able to shred the old habit.

The Time Lord sighed and went to move out of Martha's arms.

"We should probably continue driving." He mumbled, knowing that it had to be him suggesting it, he had no doubts that Martha would allow him to lay in her arms for as long as he wanted, Jack and the others be damned.

"We don't have to, we can make up an excuse if you don't feel up to going after this, though everyone will be disappointed, I'm sure they won't be angry." She told him, slightly sorrowful.

He sighed again.

"Provided we come up with a good enough excuse." The Time Lord pointed out cheekily. "Surely, something along the lines of 'we wanted to spend Christmas somewhere else' will not be accepted easily."

Martha chuckled at his comment.

"Feeling better again, I guess?" She wondered with a smile.

The Doctor nodded, though he still felt a bit tired and honestly had been rather tempted to accept Martha's suggestion to just call Christmas at Torchwood off. However, at the same time, he was rather excited about Christmas and seeing some of his old companions again.

Besides, the Christmas party would be a welcome distraction from the dark place his mind had become in the past month or so, he actually wasn't sure how long it had been since the incident of Midnight, he only knew that it had been the start for the downfall of the life he had led back then. His life was currently terrible lonely, he was left to keep soldiering on on his own. He had to, the universe relied on him, he couldn't leave it alone.

"Okay, let's go then." Martha's voice pulled him out of his musings, he noticed that she had already moved back to sit in her seat properly again.

"Yeah." He nodded decisively.

Martha started the engine again, drove them off the parking lot and back on the road.

After a while spent in companionable silence it was Martha who decided to break it eventually.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked him, by now she was fairly certain something was wrong with him and it seemed to be affecting his sleeping habits the most. She really had to figure it out and work on solving it, since sleep deprivation wasn't good for his health at all.

It took a while before the Time Lord answered, she had almost given up on getting an answer from him, taking his silence as a no, it wouldn't have been the first time he just ignored a question he didn't want to answer.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He eventually mumbled, Martha mentally sighed, he had said that in response to these kinds of questions before as well, she had learned that it meant that while he didn't want to talk about it, he would considering saying something on the subject. It was a frustrating answer but it was better than no answer.

"I think you know perfectly fine what I mean." She sighed. "Please, Doctor. This isn't healthy." she pleaded.

"Don't you think I know that!" The Time Lord exclaimed frustrated, then continued in a whisper which Martha could barely hear. "It's just..." He paused trying to contain his emotions. "Just... just thinking about it..." He shivered. "It brings it all back." He turned to look out of the side window, not able to face Martha.

Martha sighed.

"You can't keep going like this." She told him.

The Time Lord sighed as well.

"I suppose not." He admitted.

"You know what... we'll leave it for now, and come back to it after Christmas." She decided.

The Doctor nodded then murmured. "It not as if you're gonna give me a choice anyway." he looked around at their surroundings then turned back to Martha. "How much longer do we have to drive?"

"About half an hour, we're nearly there," Martha answered him.

"Thanks, Rassilon, I don't think I can handle staying much longer in this bloody car!" He exclaimed frustrated.

Martha smiled fondly at him. "You never can sit still for too long, can you?"

"It's been hours." He answered whinily.

She sighed fondly. "What am I going to do with you?..."

The Time Lord just shrugged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While editing this chapter I came across a small error that changed the meaning of the sentence and I'd like to share the mental picture I got from it as it's just so cute, in my head at least. The wrong sentence was: he only felt safe enough [to sleep] on the TARDIS. and well I'm imagining a Time Lord curled up on the roof of the TARDIS hugging the lamp as some sort of teddy bear... I would've drawn that if I'd be able to produce anything more than stick figures... either way, my brain is weird and I'm sorry for bothering you guys with my mental picture. *looks sheepishly*


	3. Christmas Eve

"There you two  _finally_ are!" The Doctor heard Jack saying before he was good and well out of the car. "I was almost worrying that the two of you got out of sorts with another hostile alien."

"Jack." The Time Lord started enthusiastically. "By now you should surely know that with me there the chances of bumping heads with deadly aliens are higher than the chances of that not happening." He slung his arm over Jack's shoulder in a bit of a sideways hug. "However that isn't why we're late. " The man wrinkled his nose in disgust. "We were stuck in traffic."

It wasn't a complete lie, they had mostly been delayed by the Time Lords journey through the land of nightmares but had also ended up in one of the typical holiday traffic jams afterwards. It hadn't done wonders on his already sour mood.

"Yeah, it actually has been kind of nice to us, it's Christmas which means that that traffic jam easily could've gone on for hours," Martha added then turned to Jack. "Hey, Jack."

"Hi Nightingale!" Jack let go of the Doctor to pull her into a hug.

"Thanks Rassilon for that, I wouldn't have survived a minute longer." The Doctor said dramatically.

Martha rolled her eyes and lightly hit him on the arm.

"Oh, let's just get inside." This earned her a slight smile from him.

Jack just laughed at their banter as he followed them inside, he was sure that they hadn't figured it out themselves yet, but they made such a good couple.

He only felt slightly jealous that he wasn't that close to their alien friend.

* * *

"Hey, Mickety mac Mickey!" The Time Lord exclaimed as he fist bumped the man.

"Good seeing you again boss," Mickey said as he pulled The Doctor in for a short hug.

"How's your new life going then?" The alien man asked the human man, he had learned from Martha that it had been over a year since the whole incident with the 27 planets had happened, which meant that enough time had passed for Mickey to accomplish something.

"Oh you know, I got hired by UNIT not too long after, got into a small team that specialises in Alien technology, or at least as much as we can, it's similar to what I did in the other universe's Torchwood." He shrugged, at that moment a pretty brunette wearing a green Christmas sweater with Santa Clauses on it walked up to them. "Oh, I'd like you to meet Scarlett, my fiancée," Mickey said as he put his arm around her waist. "Scarlett, this is The Doctor."

Scarlett nodded and extended her hand towards the Time Lord.

"Nice to meet you."

The Doctor took the offered hand.

"Nice to meet you too. And congratulations... I guess." He smiled warmly. "How did you two meet then?"

"Oh, Mickey ended up working in my department and well... we didn't get along at first but well, we had to work together and well eventually we did start to like each other a lot and ... well ... the rest is history." Scarlett told him, The Time Lord nodded in understanding.

"Hey, have you talked to Sarah Jane yet?" Mickey asked him.

"Errr... no haven't even seen her yet, why?" The Time Lord turned to look at Mickey again with an eyebrow risen in question.

"You might want to find her, I know she's been dying to speak to you," Mickey told the Doctor.

"Right..." The Time Lord looked slightly perplex.

"I believe she wanted to tell you about Luke," Mickey added.

"Ahhh. .. yeah, I wanted to know about that." He nodded. "I think I'll go look for her then, any idea where she might be?"

"She was in the kitchen earlier," Scarlett told The Doctor.

"Right, I'll be off then." He nodded and walked away.

He was about halfway through the room when he abruptly froze and walked back to them looking slightly sheepish.

"Errr... where's the kitchen?"

Mickey just laughed.

* * *

After having received detailed directions towards the kitchen he made another attempt at finding it, successfully this time.

As he walked into the kitchen he noticed Sarah Jane, who was cooking something, he presumed that it was for the Christmas dinner they were supposed to have in a bit.

He cleared his throat to make her aware of his presence, causing her to turn around,

"Oh Doctor, I didn't know you had arrived yet." She nodded to him and then turned back to her cooking, it wouldn't do to let it get burned.

"I'm not surprised, me and Martha arrived less than 10 minutes ago." He smiled slightly. "Do you need any help?"

Sarah Jane turned slightly back to him. "Err, you could cut the carrots." She suggested.

He nodded. "Okay." He rolled up his sleeves, moved over to where Sarah Jane had pointed and started cutting the carrots as requested.

They worked together for a bit in companionable silence until Sarah Jane broke it.

"I suppose I owe you an explanation about my son." She said not looking up from her cooking.

"Yeah, I am guessing that it isn't a story you'll hear often." The Time Lord guessed.

Sarah Jane nodded even though her alien friend couldn't see it. "Guessing right. It all started with this company that turned out to be run by aliens..." She started the story of Luke's creation.

* * *

Martha walked into the kitchen to check up on the preparations for dinner. As she walked in just caught Sarah Jane telling The Doctor the end of a story she had already heard while the two of them were cooking.

"Here I was with the threat revolved, but with a thirteen-year-old boy that has no life experience." She heard Sarah Jane say. "I figured it would just be best that I'd kept him as my son, I've never regretted that decision."

"He seemed like a nice lad over the video conversation." The Time Lord shrugged.

"He's here as well, you can meet him properly later." Sarah Jane told The Doctor, who nodded.

"I'd like that." He agreed, then he noticed Martha. "Oh, hi Martha."

"Hey, didn't know you were put on kitchen duty." She told The Doctor, who shrugged in response.

"I volunteered." He responded.

"You volunteered? You sure you okay? Have you got a temperature?" She playfully touched his forehead as if checking whether he has a fever.

The Time Lord rolled his eyes as he moved her hand away from his forehead. "Martha! You know that I cook sometimes!"

She just smiles cheekily at him, then turned to Sarah Jane.

"Anyway, I wanted to know how everything is going here and whether we need to start setting up the table soon?" Martha asked.

"We're actually nearly done. Everything is cooked and I only have to work on the presentation of one last dish. Why don't you two work on setting the table?" Sarah Jane asked the other two in the room.

"Sure," Martha answered for the both of them as The Doctor just started opening cupboards to get plates.

* * *

About an hour later everyone was enjoying dinner. The Doctor was seated between Martha and Jack. Luke was seated across the table from him, the Time Lord had managed to have a bit of conversation with the boy and had learned that the boy was rather clever. He had also answered some of the boy's scientific questions, at least until both Sarah Jane and Martha had told them off, apparently discussing the fine art of quantum mechanics wasn't appreciated during Christmas dinner. The Doctor had tried not to be too put out by that discovery and had managed to join another conversation involving the much more boring subject of holidays.

His life was a holiday, for Rassilon's sake!

At least, he hadn't managed to earn a glare from Martha yet, telling him that he needed to act as if he wasn't bored a bit better, so that was good.

Eventually, they moved on to sharing stories regarding encounters with aliens.

Jack had tried to tell a story about him feeling someone up in a small alley when they ended up chased by a 10 feet tall, bigfoot type alien with pink hair. At least that was what he had gathered from the small part of the story. The Doctor had been interested in the creature and how they had gotten away, although considering that Jack was immortal they might not actually have gotten away, but Sarah Jane had interrupted the story, deeming it inappropriate for Luke to hear. She had had a point but the Time Lord had felt slightly disappointed anyway, he wasn't going to ask Jack later about it, he did have a reputation to uphold after all and Jack would tease him about it forever.

Everyone was done eating and involved in conversations when Ianto declared that it was time to open the presents. Martha had informed The Doctor that they had decided that they would just share presents on Christmas Eve instead of traditional on Christmas Morning as some would be alone in the morning and it would just make the evening more fun.

The Time Lord felt guilty that he hadn't brought any presents himself, everyone had been quick to reassure him that it was okay, but it didn't stop him from feeling bad about it. He did have a good time though, he had gotten two boxes filled with Jelly Babies and Banana's, a new blue Christmas sweater with a reindeer on it from Martha, he had sent a playful glare in her direction for it, he also got a new tie and some sort of pleasure kit he hadn't really looked at from Jack.

"I thought you could use a hand with relaxing." The immortal had told the mortified Time Lord in a rather suggesting tone.

"Jack!" he had exclaimed while quickly hiding the kit in his trouser pocket.

Sarah Jane had glared at Jack, The Doctor was sure that she was angry at him because Luke was in the room with them and that he shouldn't have seen that kind of thing just yet.

He was willing to bet that she would take Jack aside to berate him for it later.

Luke had given him a self-made machine that was supposed to be able to measure the speed of atoms, Luke had explained that he had failed to get it to work in time, the Time Lord had assured him that it was fine and that he would see to finishing it. He had decided to himself that if he had the time he would visit Sarah Jane and Luke later on so they could finish it together, but he didn't promise nor say it to the boy in case he couldn't make it happen. He didn't want to disappoint the kid.

After all presents under the tree had been opened Martha stood up gaining silence from everyone, then she turned to The Doctor and started speaking.

"We have one last present for you, this one is from all of us." She moved her hands to indicate the others in the room.

Mickey came up to him with a present, handing it to the Time Lord.

"Thanks." He said, accepting it.

After he had shredded the wrapping paper, he saw that it was a book. When he opened it he realised that it was a photo album, containing pictures of him and his companions on their travels.

It featured most of his past selves and companions.

The Doctor looked up with a smile on his face.

"This is... this..." It was rare for him to be at a loss for words, but it had happened. "It's beautiful, thanks." He eventually said.

"You deserve it," Jo said to him.

* * *

Not much later they had decided to call it a night, most people would have a long journey back and that's why they had decided to end it early in the evening. The Time Lord was glad that he and Martha would be staying at a hotel as he didn't feel like sitting in a car for three hours right now, not that he ever would. Besides that, he was rather tired, that unplanned nap from earlier hadn't done much to replenish his energy levels, the nightmare had made sure of that. He knew Martha would force him to sleep in the hotel room later and somehow he was okay with that idea, which only slightly freaked him out. It was odd but he felt much more at ease around her and therefore felt that he might be able to sleep peacefully tonight, even though he considered that chance rather slim.

They were the only ones left, spare the Torchwood members, everyone else had already started their journey home.

"It was nice to see you again, Doc." Jack was letting them out. "You need to come over more often."

"I'll see about that Jack." The Doctor answered evadingly.

"Oh... come on, don't be a stranger." Jack slightly pleaded.

"I might just come by," The Time Lord decided. "if you promise to behave yourself a bit more next time at least."

"I behaved  _myself!_ " Jack exclaimed indignantly, earning himself a glare from Martha.

"Like hell you did Jack, I'm pretty sure Sarah Jane now has Luke asking questions he shouldn't be asking just yet," Martha told him. "Even though he looks old enough to start learning the basics, you should keep in mind that he's actually barely a year old and still full of innocence."

The Doctor nodded his agreement.

"I'm sure it must be tough on Sarah Jane. She's still figuring out how to handle Luke the best. It can't be easy, Luke needs to be taught enough for him to fit in with his peers, or well the ones that look the same age as him, but you can't teach him too much too fast either because he's still full of the innocence you'd see in a toddler, if he learns too many things of certain topics at once, he might end up traumatized and I don't think that I have to explain why we don't want that!" The Time Lord explained to Jack.

Jack nodded slightly as they reached the car.

"Bye Doctor, Nightingale" Jack said with a small bow.

"Till next time." The Time Lord answered as he stepped in the car.

"I'll see you later Jack." Martha said as she also stepped in.

Jack followed the car as it drove away with a small smile, it had been a great night.

** The End **

**Author's Note:**

> That's it, the end of Christmas, well at least this Christmas... Christmas never completely ends now, does it?  
> I have no plans on continuing this beyond what I have written yet, well I might have some plots but I still have about three unfinished stories so if I continue this it will be in the far future.  
> Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this


End file.
